Justin Brown's return to the front of the Alabama Symphony after an 11-week hiatus was marked Friday by a concert that balanced delicacy and transparency with power and mettle. On the menu were Barber, Schubert and Brahms, relatively conservative programming by ASO's standards, but what emerged was anything but the status quo.

Barber's "First Essay for Orchestra" served as a kind of eight-minute overture, its bold recurring theme anchored in sorrow and foreboding. Scurrying triplet figures, punchy accents and beautifully tapered dynamics gave it depth and polish.

Brown has never been a conductor to take a warhorse for granted, and he certainly didn't with Schubert's Symphony No. 8 ("Unfinished"). The first appearance of its well-known principal theme was caressed, not just performed, by the violas and cellos, then the violins. It reappeared more joyful and ebullient, shaped by subtle swells and ebbs. As a whole, the movement was full of intrigue, unfolding like a great romantic novel. The Andante maintained a crystalline focus throughout, Brown shaping it with whooshing crescendos and wisps of sound in the woodwinds and violins.

Pianist Peter Serkin was the soloist for Brahms' Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat, another Romantic era staple and an intense workout. Serkin isn't the sort of pianist to let it sound like any other pianist's rendition. The opening movement was gritty at times, gorgeous at others. Serkin's muddy scales and arpeggios, strangely placed accents and sudden tempo shifts had a disorienting effect. Like good musical stewards, Brown and the ASO managed to stay in contact with the changing downbeat.

Serkin's uneven touch and inability to get all the notes to speak created some anxious moments in the Allegro appassionato. His dreamy pianissimos in the Andante, together with cellist Warren Samples' tenderly lyrical solos, were the work's highlight. Serkin's playing in the finale ranged from harsh to quirky, and yet through it all, it was hard not to get wrapped up in it. Temperamental, even incendiary at times, it was engaging from start to finish.